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The-J

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The F&S model is getting abused. At least on Shopify/FB. If you still want to run it - my advice is go down the ClickFunnel route and offer plenty of upsells to increase your AOV. It's what Ryan Deiss et al do.

You're right, but I wanna expand a little and let people know that this shit ain't easy.

I help clients run these offers. Let me give you an example of what's required to really make it work.

First, your F+S offer must be valuable. I had a client want to offer a $2 product for free + $3.95 S&H. I set up the page and he was surprised that it didn't convert. Lost client, and a valuable lesson for me: don't run offers that aren't actually valuable. You'll just run traffic and be like 'oh this page doesn't convert'. Wrong: your offer just sucks and nobody wants it.

Most people think that anything can be given away for F+S. Not true: gotta give real value!

First and a half, your F+S offer must be valuable... to your audience. Giving people a $5 knife is only going to be valuable to people who really want that knife in the first place.

Second, you need to know what your cost per customer acquisition is. You might be running a PR campaign with a CPA of $0, an Instagram campaign with a CPA of $2, or a Facebook campaign with a CPA of $8. (Example numbers) Doesn't matter what it is, you just need to know it. This is pretty general to any business, but absolutely paramount to making a F+S offer work.

Third, your upsells need to make sense to the people who are claiming your F+S offer. This takes time and insight, and often where most of these marketers fail. Just offering shit in the same niche isn't going to make it work! You gotta solve problems in a logical order. Otherwise, your CR% on your upsells will be damn near 0.

It's easy to give shit away for free. It's harder to get free takers to pay for something they weren't even thinking about buying in the first place.

The people who make this work best are the people with the deepest pockets. Sad but true. The cheapest traffic sources have scale issues, and the most scalable traffic sources are often the most expensive. Ryan Deiss spends like millions a month. Most wannabe Internet marketers have like $200 in their pocket and think that it'll be enough money to get all of the insight and stuff to make it work on Facebook newsfeed or Google Adwords.

Sure it's possible to make it work on low budgets (especially if you have a loyal audience already that you don't need to pay to market to). But F+S offers usually just generate a bunch of bunk leads anyway that will never actually pay retail for anything. Because of this, you really gotta make sure you've got the valuable offers and the hungry audience to make the numbers work.

Don't market the 'easy way', thinking that 'oh it's a technique that makes Ryan Deiss millions! I'll do it too!' Me-too marketers waste money and lose confidence. Value comes first.
 
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amp0193

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Quick Q - where do I select the different keyword types? I've only seen Broad and what I thought was Exact but I'm beginning to think it's a Phrase match now.

Thanks.

2714cedeb2c8f69291768c0c334d2360.png
 

amp0193

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Wow, good info man. Thats alot of money to spend on ads though lol! What did you do starting out? I definitely couldnt afford that now.

For every $500 I spend, I get $1300 in revenue back.

How could I afford to not spend that money on ads?


My ads were immediately profitable, starting out.

I was suggesting to @Sanj Modha above, that even if they weren't, I would still run ads full out to get the organic search rank, because organic sales are where the money is at.


No ads = less sales = less organic ranking = less sales = less organic ranking = inventory that doesn't get sold.
 
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JayTGold

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You're right, but I wanna expand a little and let people know that this shit ain't easy.

I help clients run these offers. Let me give you an example of what's required to really make it work.

First, your F+S offer must be valuable. .

Total Newb question here. What is F+S?
 
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JayTGold

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For every $500 I spend, I get $1300 in revenue back.

How could I afford to not spend that money on ads?


My ads were immediately profitable, starting out.

I was suggesting to @Sanj Modha above, that even if they weren't, I would still run ads full out to get the organic search rank, because organic sales are where the money is at.


No ads = less sales = less organic ranking = less sales = less organic ranking = inventory that doesn't get sold.

Nice! You have your number calculated to a t I see.

Guys, with all the recent changes in Amazon reviews rules and such. What new methods have you been using for product launches that doesnt involve free giveaways for reviews?
 

The-J

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Total Newb question here. What is F+S?

Free + shipping, typically just means you offer something for free and ask them to pay shipping, meaning they gotta input their credit card + pay you money. It's a psychological hook to make them more likely to buy more, and it allows you to have their credit card on file for the session so they can instantly purchase items in that session without them whipping out their card again.
 

amp0193

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Nice! You have your number calculated to a t I see.

It changes every day based on ad costs. It just hovers around $1300. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. And it's better for some campaigns than others. Some campaigns are way better. Some are a little worse.

Guys, with all the recent changes in Amazon reviews rules and such. What new methods have you been using for product launches that doesnt involve free giveaways for reviews?

If needed, I'll do a 40-60 unit giveaway, with no expectation for a review. What matters most is the boost you get from the sales. Reviews I just let take care of themselves with a good follow up sequence now.
 
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#nowhere

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The F&S model is getting abused. At least on Shopify/FB. If you still want to run it - my advice is go down the ClickFunnel route and offer plenty of upsells to increase your AOV. It's what Ryan Deiss et al do.

Is the mention of Ryan Deiss a praise or a critique on his techniques? Thanks for your help! :smile2:
 

JayTGold

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It changes every day based on ad costs. It just hovers around $1300. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. And it's better for some campaigns than others. Some campaigns are way better. Some are a little worse.



If needed, I'll do a 40-60 unit giveaway, with no expectation for a review. What matters most is the boost you get from the sales. Reviews I just let take care of themselves with a good follow up sequence now.

1-Ok got it. So these give aways are allowed just not asking for review for giveaway is what's not allowed. Then you're following up the giveaway with feedback emails asking to honestly leave a review if they liked the product or not. Pretty much the gist of it correct?

2- been using the usual social media marketing channels I imagine? Facebook ads, instagram etc? Do you usually build up a social media account before launching a product?

3- Do you use other channels of communicating with audiences, reddit, specialized forums, etc?

Sorry if I'm derailing the thread, it's just that alot of really good side information can be gotten from these questions and amp0193 is apparently very experienced.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Sanj Modha

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Is the mention of Ryan Deiss a praise or a critique on his techniques? Thanks for your help! :smile2:

It's definitely praise. Deiss is the best at 'tripwires', upsells and increasing the AOV. The Digital Marketer blog is one I follow religiously.
 
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Sanj Modha

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***UPDATE***

We listed this product on Jan 27th. I don't think the sales are bad at all in about 2 weeks. We should hit our $1000/month goal in the next two weeks at this rate. Here's a current snapshot:

Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet

Remember, I have NEVER used Amazon Marketplace before. I applied some common sense and watched some YT videos. There's zero reviews, no PLA and this is FBM not FBA. I'm actually quite stunned by the results.
 

Sanj Modha

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It changes every day based on ad costs. It just hovers around $1300. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. And it's better for some campaigns than others. Some campaigns are way better. Some are a little worse.



If needed, I'll do a 40-60 unit giveaway, with no expectation for a review. What matters most is the boost you get from the sales. Reviews I just let take care of themselves with a good follow up sequence now.

What app do you use for the follow up sequence? I'm using Feedback Genius but I've recently found out that it doesn't integrate with FBM which is a bummer. Thanks.
 

amp0193

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1-Ok got it. So these give aways are allowed just not asking for review for giveaway is what's not allowed. Then you're following up the giveaway with feedback emails asking to honestly leave a review if they liked the product or not. Pretty much the gist of it correct?

That's correct.

- been using the usual social media marketing channels I imagine? Facebook ads, instagram etc? Do you usually build up a social media account before launching a product?

I don't do any social media. I don't use it in my personal life, and it gives me anxiety when I try to use it for business, as it doesn't come naturally for me. Paying someone to do it for me, has been on my list of things to get around to. Social Media launches would be wonderful to do, if you could manage to do it effectively.

3- Do you use other channels of communicating with audiences, reddit, specialized forums, etc?

No, and I think it's because I am not my ideal customer. I don't communicate at their level, or congregate where they do, and I don't desire to. I'm actually looking to sell this business and get into something else. This disconnect between me and my customers is one of the big reasons for doing so.

Other people have used forums/audiences/influencers/websites with much success. And I plan to learn this, and max it out for my next business.
 
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amp0193

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What app do you use for the follow up sequence? I'm using Feedback Genius but I've recently found out that it doesn't integrate with FBM which is a bummer. Thanks.

Feedbackz.com. It's the app of forum member @James A . Good product at a good price. No complaints.


You said you were going to use FBA anyways though, right?


Unless your product is way oversized, or way heavy, FBA is the way to go. You'll get way more sales than you will by FBM. People love prime.

If you stick it out with FBM, look into "merchant-fulfilled Prime". It's a new program, but I think it's invite only for now.
 

Sanj Modha

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***UPDATE 2***

So it's been almost 30 days since I started this experiment. Here is the current sales report:

Screen Shot 2017-02-22 at 13.03.45 — Postimage.org

Things I've learnt in the last 30 days:

1) FBA > FBM - let Amazon take care of everything. If they screw up they fix it plus customers have the extra option of Prime shipping which will boost conversions.

2) Dig deeper and find untapped gems. Don't get lazy with product research because that's like 99% of the success process. We've sold a few items but the traffic just isn't there to scale this up. It was a very low risk test since we shipped FBM from our warehouse.

3) Scale with PPC campaigns - only two factors really matter. Sales Velocity and Reviews. You don't need reviews to sell but it will improve conversions. We don't have a single review yet but with the right follow up sequence/app - that will get better for the next project.

Conclusion - learnt a hell of a lot from my first experience on Amazon. Almost $700 isn't too shabby considering there is a learning curve inside Seller Central. It's not impossible either. Our next item will go straight to FBA and that's an order for 1000 units. I'm super excited.
 
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James Fake

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Feedbackz.com. It's the app of forum member @James A . Good product at a good price. No complaints.

Thank you soooo much for the shoutout!

@Sanj Modha - So sorry for replying and seeing/joining this thread late. I hope all is going well since your last update. I'll be following. =) Once you get something up and running solidly, yell at me about Feedbackz, I'll have something special for you as a FL'aner.
 

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Thank you soooo much for the shoutout!

@Sanj Modha - So sorry for replying and seeing/joining this thread late. I hope all is going well since your last update. I'll be following. =) Once you get something up and running solidly, yell at me about Feedbackz, I'll have something special for you as a FL'aner.

I started the first free month, but for some reason I couldn't import my sales. Told this to your support but they didn't seem to care enough to solve my problem.

Too bad, because I liked the user friendliness of the software. I started working with another review site now.
 

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